States Face Correctional Officer Shortage Amid A Cultural StigmaAdministrators are trying new recruiting tactics and offering bonuses to make up for the shortfall. But for now, open shifts in some states have to be covered with mandatory overtime.

Corrections officer Sgt. Charles Galaviz secures an inmate for transfer with handcuffs and shackles Jan. 24 at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center, in Lexington, Okla. Overtime is mandatory for correctional officers in the state's prisons, which have a manpower shortage of about 33 percent and the highest inmate homicide rate in the country.
Sue Ogrocki/AP
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Sue Ogrocki/AP

Corrections officer Sgt. Charles Galaviz secures an inmate for transfer with handcuffs and shackles Jan. 24 at the Lexington Assessment and Reception Center, in Lexington, Okla. Overtime is mandatory for correctional officers in the state's prisons, which have a manpower shortage of about 33 percent and the highest inmate homicide rate in the country.

Sue Ogrocki/AP

More than 1.3 million people are incarcerated in state prisons in this country, and keeping those prisons running requires tens of thousands of corrections officers. But right now, some states are facing major staffing shortages.

Much of this shortfall is because of the strong economy, but recruiters also are struggling with the job's cultural stigma.

Cadets at Wyoming's Department of Corrections Training Academy are practicing how they'll handcuff prisoners. In a few weeks this scenario will be very real, but right now everyone is pretty relaxed.

These cadets are in high demand, here and across the country. Wyoming's correctional staff is currently 20 percent short, and Michigan, Kansas, Texas and other states face similar shortfalls.

New recruit Carlos Galan says he ended up joining Wyoming Corrections by chance, after his job as a food service manager dried up.

"I was out of a job — I had to get out of my comfort zone," Galan says.

Galan says he has always wanted to work in law enforcement.

He grew up in Southern California, and in the back seat during his parents' commute, he says, "you saw the highway patrol training academy there, so that sparked my interest in getting into law enforcement."

But it never crossed his mind, Galan says, that he would want to be a corrections officer at a prison someday.

That's not what recruiters hope to hear.

Lt. Aaron Blair, an instructor at the academy and a former corrections officer, says most of the cadets he gets see the job as a steppingstone to a police or sheriff's department — or as just a job, not a career.

"Law enforcement on the street, they get far more interaction with the good part of society," he says. "We know, going in those gates every day, we're dealing with convicted felons. It can wear on a person, become very dark."

"The guy with the sunglasses, holding the shotgun — a knuckle-dragger, I guess," he says.

Blair and prison officials in other states say raises would help make the field more competitive. Nationwide, the average starting wage is about $15 an hour.

Some states are offering recruitment and retention bonuses, but for now, every shift has to be covered. That has officers working a lot of overtime; in Kansas, Oklahoma, and other states with severe shortages, overtime is mandatory.

Leann Bertsch with the Association of State Correctional Administrators says that's a problem.

"They're not meant to not have days off; they're not meant to work extraordinarily long shifts," she says. "That creates dangerous situations."

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Bertsch's group has fought for more funding for corrections, but she says legislators often prioritize law enforcement that's closer to home.

"They're working behind the walls, behind the fences, and oftentimes the policymakers who are setting the compensation for correctional officers don't appreciate the difficult nature of their jobs," Bertsch says.